affirmation of life

"...you will surely die" is countered with an affirmation of life25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, “For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” 26And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.5:1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died (Gen. 4:25-5:5).

We return to Adam and Eve, the first that we have heard of them since Cain and Abel were born. The first couple have lost their first two sons - Abel dead and Cain in exile.

Their thoughts must have gone back to Eden. At the tree of knowledge, Eve, and then Adam, had become entranced by the siren song of self. Choosing a different lord, they had established their own rules as superior to God's rules, their knowledge as superior to His knowledge.Cain had been the son of their rebellion, and Abel had been the son of their obedience. At Creation, God had programmed order into the chaos of the universe. One son had chosen chaos while the other had chosen order. Conflict had been inevitable.

Their first punishment for their betrayal of God's trust in the Garden had been expulsion from the Garden. There had been the promise of death, and now they receive that promise, that second punishment. And the punishment of death costs them two sons - the one murdered, the other a murderer, one lost to death, the other lost to exile.

Adam and Eve were fortunate in one respect: God gave justice to the murdered son by judging and condemning the murdering son to exile. How should a parent respond in such a tragic situation? David, guilty of the murder of Uriah, faced a similar dilemma when Absalom murdered his half-brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13-14). David's inaction after Amnon's rape of Absalom's full sister, Tamar, reveals the weakness of David as a father. When Amnon goes unpunished. Absalom patiently waits for an opportunity for revenge, Following Amnon's murder, Absalom flees, and David again does nothing. After a time, David even longs for his absent son. Joab, also a murderer whom David did not punish (2 Samuel 3:22-30), intervenes on behalf of the unpunished Absalom who is in self-imposed exile. Joab prompts a woman to tell a story to David about having two sons, one of whom has killed the other. If justice is done, she will lose her second son. This story is very similar to the dilemma that Adam and Eve would have faced without God's intervention.

Adam and Eve find that they must always live with the consequences of their choices. The effects of stepping out from under God's rule cause ripples not only in the fabric of the world around them, but in the future that stands before them.Nature, the world outside the Garden that God had declared "good" at Creation, could no longer be obedient to the humans who had stepped out from under God's authority. Now a son has stepped out from under his parents' authority, growing wild and yielding the poisonous fruit of death rather than of love, Murder is the ultimate assertion of the god of self.

Note that Chapter 5 abruptly leaves the lineage of Cain and returns to the lineage of Adam. We are reminded that God created Adam in His likeness. Adam creates Seth in his own likeness, which is in the image of God. We have here the beginnings of the list of men who are in the image originally intended by God.

The tradition recorded in the Book of Jubilees says that the bereaved parents mourned for 28 years. And Eve conceived again and a son was born - Seth, Strong's H8352: "put, that is, substituted." This name is from H7896: "to place (in a wide variety of applications)," including "appointed."​There is new life, a son to carry on the future of the line. Seth is a substitute. We might even view him as the sacrifice, asked to give up self so that God's order, God's lordship, might be restored on earth as it is in heaven. This is the third Beatitude, blessed are the meek - not my will but Your will be done, O Lord.This is the birth of a new future with new possibilities.​ Next article